I got a package of sour belts. The outside of the candy was the delicious, familiar sugar-and-citric-acid sand. However, the candy itself was scented so strongly with fake vanilla that the whole experience was like eating the chemical frosting on a cheap cupcake topped with citric acid. Repulsive!

The Happiest Place on Earth

The only thing worse than a hospital waiting room with a TV playing is a hospital waiting room with multiple people playing videos aloud on their phones.

the basic theory of DOGE was that if powerful people said it was fine it didn’t matter what the law said.

I think proving that theory wrong is worth significant effort

This is cool and right, but we should make a special day for his wife to wear an incredible outfit. For the morale of the country.

An anthropomorphic piece of sliced bread and a bunch of red roses smiling, walking hand-in-hand. The slice of bread carries a red banner that says "We Want It All" Beneath the image it says Haymarket Books Est. 2001, Chicago IL

We want it all

New design collab with @harebrained.bsky.social

If he’s gonna shoot himself in there, I say let him build it

I really think this is key. My real wages have gone up. They have not gone up so much that I can save enough to be secure in old age if social security collapses. People know they cannot afford to pay for the services the gov’t currently provides if the gov’t stops being able to provide them.

…failing or godless public schools, lack of universal healthcare, doubts about social security solvency or actual egg prices, the big picture is that nobody thinks the government can solve problems, only create them. And we’re looking at a future increasingly as a war of each against all.

I know the particulars of my over-educated left wing mindset—the fascist SCOTUS will end democracy and climate change will destabilize everything—aren’t universal. But the same anxiety just takes different shape on the right and center. Whether you’re in particular worried about crime, immigration…

…that exact experience is shared. But I think big picture, people do not think our government is able to solve problems. And even if real wages are up, they’re not up enough to make me secure in a world where the government can’t protect me from the whims of billionaires.

My subjective experience of that time was a brief relief from doom when the vaccines came out—look, we can still do hard things when we try!—that immediately crashed when I saw how our poisonous tribal politics made it clear that vaccine delivery would be messy and incomplete. I dunno how broadly…

In the charts of consumer sentiment, you see a big spike in optimism around the time the vaccines came out, that then crashes back down quickly. People interpret that as the vaccines providing hope that the lockdown would end, and then those hopes being crushed when the variants came through again.

I really think this has some explanatory power for the vibecession.

My personal finances are pretty good. Not so good that I could weather the collapse of the government, though! Not so good that I could e.g. replace social security with savings. Increasingly, we can’t count on our system to work.

this is why you're not supposed to cross those databases, idiots

Pope: I'm against genocides personally

Republicans: So much for the tolerant left!

Johnson/Vance, smugly: Hey pope, ya ever hear about a little thing called just war theory? It doesn’t describe anything we’re doing, but it is a thing that exists!

In a sick, violent way, they have more faith in the possibility of a new world than a lot of people on the other side. They are willing to reimagine all of it. Many of us cannot imagine getting rid of payday loans and they’re like eff it, let’s see if the Pope’s still got the juice.

Ok guys we can get clever, but we have a word for this and it's called p hacking

Ol’ JD out here making it crystal fucking clear that there isn’t a value he won’t throw in the trash in exchange for power.

I believe this man would sell his children for a shot at the presidency. Disgusting.

Oh yeah, whoever wants to can just drive up to the White House and knock on the door carrying opaque bags. And the President just comes to the door to pick up the delivery!

Everyone who lives in DC knows how easy it is to access the White House.

Undaunted by the liberal fake news media, Trump pursues his research into the lifesaving treatment of somehow putting a light inside the body to cure disease. Obviously.

I guess AEI wouldn’t be willing to produce your podcast if it advocated for anything so liberal as federal science funding.

When I hear him talk, he seems smart, thoughtful, and principled. But then he does not do what I think someone smart, thoughtful, and principled would do. It’s weird.

I want to like Ben Sasse, but I just never understand the choices he makes.

Someone dying of cancer, extending his life with experimental treatment, who has experience as a university administrator is perfectly positioned to explain the importance of federal research money. But he’s not doing that.

i will vote for any candidate who offers up this slogan

Were not meant to toil for the profit of billionaires. Were meant to take care of each other to advance the species high enough to go meet our star gods at the edge of the observable universe.

Those people fell down from the moon. Like in a cartoon. Wild stuff.

I feel like impeaching him over corruption strengthens the message about corruption?

100% agree